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The importance behind critical thinking

A lot of people seem to be under the belief that making money is easy. It’s not. There’s always some degree of hard work and persistence involved. There still has to be an element of creativity, a willingness to take risks and a pang of hunger to succeed. But sometimes, this hunger to accomplish can be so overwhelming that it creates a degree of vulnerability.

Why?

Because people seem to be convinced that this individual trait is in itself a pathway to success. In reality, it’s not – and a lot of the people making severe bucks off the internet are actively capitalising on this.

How many e-books or sales letters do we see advertising, ‘lots of hard work, persistence, creativity to possibly succeed’? Not very many!

Why?

Because people are convinced that these traits are irrelevant as long as there’s a willingness to succeed. In other words, I want to succeed, but I want to let somebody else worry about the idea and create the creativity. Let them put in the hard work and persistence and give me the money once they’re done. While it’s a nice thought, it’s obviously a very deluded one, and I’m sure my readers know this.

Nobody is going to help you make $1000 an hour in three simple steps in a week. Not unless something’s in it for them – and in reality, a $10 e-book is just not worth it on their part. I’m concerned about the number of people who continuously fall victim to these scams.

Let’s take this for what it is.

Many of the so-called “A-List” bloggers are also guilty of this. A lot of these people are creating mountains of money by feasting on the vulnerability and desires of their audience. They regard their visitors as sheep, and instead of providing them with actual avenues to create wealth – instead, nudge them into a direction in which the A-List blogger ultimately benefits. They set up extremely sneaky partnerships with online businesses, and seemingly begin spinning out lies – which often include many fake success stories.

Many forge the amount of RSS subscribers they have, in an attempt to give their blog some sort of credibility, exaggerating profit and using a stack of black hat methods to grow their blogs. There is a distinct difference between revenue and profit – and it’s important to understand which of these two terms are being referred to when figures are involved. Income basically describes all of the money coming into the business, without taking into account any expenses – while profit refers to the amount earned after expenses. In short – revenue means absolutely nothing if there’s a massive list of costs.

I think it really does come down to the fact that a lot of these bloggers aren’t really hungry anymore. They’ve attained success, and now that they’ve got a loyal band of readers and followers, it becomes all about monetising their blog rather than focusing on the quality content which projected them into the realms of online stardom. It’s also important to note there are many genuine A-List bloggers, and as such, I’m definitely not making reference to all of them.

Regardless – this isn’t the point I’m trying to make. It is absolutely paramount to use critical thinking in every single aspect of your online venture. Use your gut instinct – usually, it’s right. When you read articles and advice, the author typically speaks very broadly so as make what they’re saying applicable to as many people as possible. What I’ve found to work for me, is to mainly regard anything I hear as nothing more than a ‘tip’ and merely make sure to weave it in (of course it’s something of high quality) into what I’m doing.

If you believe something that somebodies wrote is worth investigating, do so with an open mind. You should never be compelled to jump into something just because somebodies recommended it. It should be your decision, based on your gut instinct and your own research and analysis. You’re the one that needs to make this work at the end of the day – not them.

Have you ever been burned by false promises? I’d definitely be interested to hear your opinions!

Simon Mkhize

Steps To Become the person you want to be in life is in your hands, Business, Education Money, Career